Creative Restoration Retreat
In the cold heart of winter, we gather in the warm heart of the Sonoran Desert for four days of creative nourishment, inspiration, and camaraderie. The Stories from Here retreat is the culmination of years of teaching, coaching, and program design, with a sole-focus on replenishing each participant's knowing, intuitive, creative life-force. The part which, when we listen to it, leads to our best stories.
The long weekend is built with plenty of opportunity to work with, develop, and to share your stories; but it is not a craft workshop. It's an experience designed to hone clarity and confidence in telling the truths you most want to tell; whether you communicate in print, in performance, in organizing, art, teaching, or leadership. ​Every day includes a morning workshop, a 1-hour partner session with focus on your creative work, three healthy, beautiful meals prepared by beloved local chefs, an evening story-circle, and plenty of time to write, rest, reflect, swim, explore the land, and listen. There is a good balance of scheduled and unscheduled time. A sample schedule is below.
The Retreat takes place in February of 2024, on two separate dates and locations. The gathering on February 1st - 5th in Tubac, Arizona at the Historic Shankle Ranch is for women and those who identify that way in any aspect. The gathering on February 18th - 22nd at The Desert Renewal Center in Tucson, Arizona is for everyone. Both retreats are three full days with two partial days on each end.
Each Retreat is again limited again to 12 people to insure balance and a comfortable group dynamic. This means there is something of a selection process, but nothing rigorous. If you have attended before, you're invited again. If we haven't met before (or in a long time), I'll invite you to a Zoom conversation where we can connect and see if the retreat serves your purposes. My goal is to host a diverse cohort of people with a wide range of interests and life-experiences, and an ineffable chemistry that will deeply benefit each of you.
"This retreat is clearly the culmination of decades of work, bringing people into alignment with their innate creative life force. It was a gift to witness and be a part of."
Lindsay Muscato, Tech Editor for TIME Magazine
"...He told me how a friend of his once heard a whole sky full of stars when she was seven. And later on when she was eighty three she heard a cactus blooming in the dark. The old man said, "Most people never hear those things at all." I said, "I wonder why." He said, "They just don't take the time you need for something that important."
- from The Other Way to Listen by Byrd Baylor
*At the Tucson Retreat, breakfast and lunch are one hour earlier.
